


Still We're Dying in America

by Beth Harker (chiana606), chiana606



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, Post canon, graphic depictions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:52:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4265643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/Beth%20Harker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/chiana606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic starts out where the musical ends.  Miracles don't come with a warrantee.  For Roger and Collins that means having to face their mortality with each passing day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still We're Dying in America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinlizzy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/gifts).



There was no warrantee on Christmas miracles; they weren't made to last forever, and let's face it, Roger was used to living on borrowed time, living _for_ those fleeting moments when things weren't so shitty. So on Christmas Eve Roger got a few hours with Mimi, Mark, Collins, Maureen, and Joanne, jammed in as close together as six friends could get, watching Mark's film. Roger got to wrap Mimi in his arms, and know that she was alive. He got to bury his face in her hair, and drink in the familiar feel of it, dirty and soaked with sweat though it was. Mimi had that certain smell of the streets, that scent of trash and urine and New York City at its worst, but Roger couldn't get enough of her.

That night, when the film was finished, Joanne brought Mimi over to her apartment, which at least had hot water. They all came, and Joanne found ways to make it work, spreading blankets out on the floor, and insisting that Roger and Mimi take the bed, since they needed it the most. 

"Honey." Mimi's voice was raspy and weak, but she smiled. "Do you have any idea where I've been sleeping? Trust me, I don't need the bed. I probably have fleas."

Joanne didn't say anything. She just hugged Mimi as tight as she could, then started ushering Roger and Mimi into the bathroom, needlessly telling them where she kept her small arsenal of soaps and hair products, and which ones they should use. She needn't have, because getting Mimi cleaned up turned out to be a group effort, with Maureen taking the lead, and only Collins and Mark waiting outside. 

"We're like your own personal salon," Maureen joked, with a grin that wavered just the tiniest bit. "Did I ever tell you about the time I worked as a hair dresser, and got fired for dying this sweet little girl's hair pink?"

Joanne kept her eyes on knots that she was gently trying to work out of Mimi's hair, but that didn't mean that Roger missed the disapproving look that crossed her face. "You dyed a little girl's hair pink?"

"She _wanted_ it, Pookie."

"If we had a little girl, would you let her dye her hair pink?" Mimi asked. Roger almost choked.

"I don't know," he tried to turn the crack in his voice into a laugh, and he nearly succeeded. Mimi could always astonish him. 

"Wrong answer. It's her hair, not yours, and you better remember that." Mimi's eyes were half shut, and she leaned her head back against Joanne's hands, almost like a cat being petted. Roger didn't have the heart to remind Mimi that they'd never have a little girl with pink hair. They were in the middle of their Christmas miracle, after all. They deserved to be happy. Roger reached out to cup Mimi's cheek in his hands, leaned in close to her, and planted the softest of kisses on her lips. Her skin was warm, not with fever as it had been earlier that evening, but with some ephemeral approximation of health. Her eyes met Roger's, and Roger knew that their deep brown was the color of love, the color of inspiration. 

Losing sight of those eyes later, even so that Mimi could curl up next to him in peaceful sleep, was difficult. Roger leaned back against the headboard of the bed, and stared ahead so blankly that he didn't even notice Collins slide in next to him until he was already there. 

"I'm here for you man," was all Collins had to say. Roger's throat tightened, and he swallowed back that tightness with all of his might. Times were hard, and they always would be. Collins wrapped his arm around Roger's shoulders, gave him a quick squeeze, and then just stayed there, solid and firm. Whatever else happened, Roger wasn't going to have to face it alone. 

\---------------  
By New Year's Eve, Mimi was in the hospital. She was stick thin, with plastic tubes jammed up her nose to help her breathe, but they wouldn't be enough to save her, not by a long shot. 

Roger had never been good with words at times like these. Mimi knew. 

"You don't have to say anything," she told him. "Just hang around and play your guitar. Play the song you wrote for me. It's a good song, baby."

Collins was the one who Mimi talked to. Well, Collins and Angel. Maybe it was just all the drugs that they were pumping into her system, but Mimi was convinced that Angel was standing by her side, soothing her through convulsions and painful breaths, giving her little messages to relay to Collins and the others. 

"You know how much that girl loved you?" Mimi whispered to Collins, as he stroked her hand, and Roger plucked half-hearted chords into his guitar. 

"Yeah. Yeah. I might have some idea."

"She loved you sooo much. It's all about love where she lives, all of it, and she wants you to know that. She's gonna come for you one of these days and show your where it is."

Collins just smiled, with all his teeth showing, and tears in his eyes. That's all he could do. 

Hospital visitation hours ended at nine o'clock. It was only family after that time. Mimi had a mama somewhere, but she didn't want her to know that she was dying. 

"I hate..." Roger said, as he and Collins were leaving the building, because the doctors wouldn't even allow them to stick around the waiting room. 

"Hey, I know."

Roger gritted his teeth, and slammed his fist against the hospital wall. He would've slammed his guitar, if Collins hadn't grabbed him in a tight hug. 

"Come on," Collins said after a few minutes. "Angel's with her, and she ain't about to let no orderlies kick her out. Let's go get some food in you, boy." 

"I'm... I'm sorry Mimi says all those things." Roger managed to choke out. He flexed his hand experimentally. He could move it, but it hurt like hell.

"Nothing to be sorry for."

"Do you really think Angel's..." 

Collins cut him off with a decisive nod. "I think so. I _know_ so. She's there. Here too." Collins laughed, "Come on, don't look at me like _I'm_ the crazy one, when you're the guy who just damn well near broke his fist punching a brick wall."

\--------------

Maureen was the one that proposed the wedding. 

"Think about! It would solve all of your problems. I'm sure we could take Mimi out of the hospital for one day, she can't be that sick. I'll take care of everything." 

Maureen's enthusiasm was as boundless as her lack of understanding. Roger didn't even know what to say. His life was crumbling, and Maureen wanted to play wedding planner. 

Maureen leaned into Roger, and smoothed down his shirt. "You'll make such a handsome groom," she cooed. 

Joanne rolled her eyes, and pulled Maureen back away from Roger. "It wouldn't be a bad idea from a legal perspective," she conceded. "It would give you the right to make decisions about her medical care, as well as full visitation rights. Think it about it. It doesn't have to be a big production." The last words were spoken slowly and forcefully, to Maureen rather than Roger. 

Roger went outside to sit on the stoop of the building with Collins, who took one look at his worried face, and offered him a blunt. 

"The ladies just finish talking to you?"

"Yeah," Roger inhaled deeply. 

Collins let out a low whistle, "Look at you, still afraid of commitment." He gave a short laugh, that turned into a cough. Roger did his best to ignore both sounds. 

"That isn't it." Roger ran his hand up through his hair, eyes cast towards his knees as he hunched over. "I don't believe in marriage. It's... It's a stupid institution, alright? Why should two people need to go to town hall and then to some goddamned church to get a paper saying they love one another? Tell me what's the point in all of that, huh?" 

"Joanne talk to you about the legal perks?"

Roger buried his head in his hands, "Maybe I don't want to get married to somebody who's just going to... someone who's... Maybe I don't want to be a widower, alright?"

Collins sighed, and ruffled Roger's hair. "I would've done anything to have been allowed to marry Angel before she went," Collins told him. "Wasn't an option. She understood. You know what she asked me?"

"What?" 

"She asked me if I wanted to be with her up until the very last moment, and I said of course I did. How's that for a commitment ceremony? She up and promised right then and there that she wouldn't let herself pass on if I wasn't in the room to hold her, and you know what? She kept that promise. She held on for me." 

"You think people can do that?" Roger asked. 

"Seeing is believing. Doesn't mean I don't regret every moment I didn't get to spend with her, just 'cause the hospital didn't recognize us as family. It don't hurt nothin' to go and make things official, if you have that option. Think about it."

\---------

Mimi went while Roger was still making up his mind. Wasn't that always the way of things with him? Every lesson he'd had in the last year had taught him to jump into life head first, because there was no knowing if he had one minute left, or 525,600 of them, and yet Roger resisted this philosophy every step of the way.

At least Roger was there with her when the happened, either through sheer dumb luck, or willfulness on her part. It wasn't enough. There was a scramble at the hospital to figure out what to do with Mimi's remains. Nobody asked Roger what should be done. The choice went to a cousin in Cincinnati, who requested the cheapest option, and then hung up the phone. the hospital couldn't disclose her number to Roger. There was no option to ask for something better. 

\---------

"I want to die alone," Roger told Collins and Mark some week later. They were at the bar. Roger tried to take a gulp of his screwdriver, but ended up sloshing it down his shirt instead. "Damnit all. I drink something healthy for once, and it can't even stay in the cup. So much for vitamin C. Hey, guys, a toast to vitamin C, last line of defense when everybody's immune system is fucking them over." 

Collins and Mark exchanged glances, then clinked their glasses together. Roger, drunk though he was, was not deaf. He heard Mark telling the bartender to switch to straight orange juice from here on out. He didn't care enough to argue.

"You're not going to die alone, because you're stuck with us," Mark told him. 

"Lucky me."

They got home, and Roger found himself sitting on the couch with Collins and Mark. 

" _Death_ , man." Roger's head was thrown back against the couch at a painful angle, and he faced the ceiling as he spoke. 

"They say death and taxes are the only sure things in life," Mark quipped uncomfortably. 

"Yeah," said Collins, "But you can evade your taxes."

"You guys aren't even listening to me. You gotta... You gotta hear what I'm saying. Hear it with your ears. Death isn't pretty. It's disgusting. They put you put you back in diapers to keep you from shitting blood all over everything. Then your lungs starts rattling at the end, and you're... You're like a skeleton filled with skin and tubes to hold you together it's..." 

"Roger." There was a note of warning in Collins' voice. 

"A couple minutes after her heart monitor stopped, her fingers twitched," Roger said flatly. "She was... She was already dead. It was a reflex. Like with... with _bugs_ , man."

Mark grimaced almost like he was going to be sick, but Collin's just watched Roger with serious, sympathetic eyes. 

"Then they treat you like a biohazard after," added Collins, suddenly despondent. Tears were prickling at the corners of Roger's eyes, and he lurched forward to catch them in his hands. Collins was right. That was how it ended. All your light and beauty got extinguished, and what was left over was a sack of skin and bones, a sack of blood that was absolutely teeming with disease.

Death head no dignity. Then again, neither did facing it by getting so drunk that you cried till you threw up, and yet here Roger was. 

\-----------

By Valentine's Day, Collins' cough hard turn into something fierce and painful sounding. Roger avoided him. He didn't go to life support meetings, but then again, those had never been his scene anyway. Mark did go, at Collins' request, camera in hand each and every time. 

Things were looking up for Roger, just a little bit. He had a gig, playing his guitar in a club. It was money, and the place was just rundown enough not to crush Roger's soul. It looked like he might even get to record a couple of songs, on the off chance the he could could muster up the energy to take the opportunity. 

"You know," Mark told Roger, while he was attempting to rummage up something for breakfast one morning, "Collins is really sick."

"So am I. You get used to it." 

There was a box of Captain Crunch cereal way in the back of the cupboard, but when Mark poured it into the cleanest bowl that he could find, only dusty crumbs and a couple of ants came out. "Ew."

"You get used to that, too," Roger said with a grin. "Want some sour milk to wash it down with? The power's out. Again."

\------

"I'm not that sick," Collins told Roger at the club one day. He'd come to see Roger perform. There was an odd sort of rash on Collins' hands, Roger tried not to focus on it, but it he couldn't help it. 

"How do you figure?"

"Haven't seen Angel."

It was all Roger could do not to scoff. "What if she doesn't show?"

"Well," Collins picked at the lint on his coat, "whether or not she does, Mark's got a front row seat to the festivities. He talk to you about it much?"

"He knows better."

Collins nodded. "It's not the kind of movie that's supposed to make people comfortable. Can't blame either of you for being uncomfortable with it. I want everybody to see what this disease does to you. I want them to squirm, then I want them to rise up and do something..."

"Well, that's a great idea and all, A+ film making, but..." Roger started to get up, but Collins stopped him in his tracks with a hand on his arm. 

"I said I wasn't bad yet, and I meant it. Would you sit down and talk to an old friend? I'll tell you when you have to be worried, so you can hightail it out of here."

"It's not like that."

Collins raised his eyebrows at Roger. "Okay," Roger said. "Maybe I need to work harder to keep it from being like that. Listen, it won't be, okay? I'm done running away from people."

"Good," Collins answered, "because Maureen is doing a show on Tuesday night, and I want you and Mark to _both_ come with me."

Roger took a breath, and nodded. "I'll be there," he promised.


End file.
